Doing shady jobs in a cyberpunk city
In 🌆Metrorunner players slip into the shoes of Runners in the dystopian cyberpunk Mirror City, completing shady jobs and hacking into the networks of mega-corporations, fighting to become the most influential and notorious one. This is a competitive euro game for 1-5 players. It is on the lighter side, but there is quite an array of game mechanisms at play! 😉
You have rondel movement, set-collection, some engine-building and also pick-up-and-deliver with a mini-expansion, but the main focus of the game is definitely contract fulfillment. Oh there is also the hacking mini game, which introduces a very unique tile-sliding puzzle!
On a turn you must move clockwise on the rondel board, either one or two spaces. You can move more but it costs extra cubes. Wherever you arrive you can either do the depicted action, or do the district action of your current district. These are all quite straightforward: 👉 getting resource cubes, drawing contract cards or completing contracts. To complete a contract you need to spend the required resources in the correct district - then you get the payment 💴 of the card and you can tuck it under your player board, gaining bonuses accordingly. Tucked cards can have ongoing effects like awarding bonus resources or giving discounts, and you are also monitoring 4 set-collection goals to work towards.
Certain spots in the city let you attempt a hack: 🖥️ you’ll slide around tiles in a central 3x3 grid, trying to connect parts of the grid according to a card. If you are successful (that is you are good a pattern matching in your head 😅), you get bonus like cubes, credits and movement on the 2 tracks of the game: the Influence 🏢 track unlocks more complex hacks for better rewards, and the Notoriety 🥷 track improves your resource collection.
💭I love the theme, the artwork, the concept of the game and many of its ideas, but I wish it was a tiny bit more complex. It felt a bit repetitive for us and with 2p there is not much blocking of each other either. However if you enjoy contract fulfillment, and need something light and easy to teach that accommodates up to 5 players it might be better suited for you. 😉
